Slow updates

We at Vertical Rising would like to apologize for the lack of updates to the site over the past few weeks. It's been rather hectic for all of us here in the web team as Joey is having her finals (law), and King and I are still running our assignment marathon. To make matters worse, Monash University's exam period starts next week, so it's going to be difficult to keep the blog updated for the time being. But anyhow, we do hope all you readers would be patient and continue to visit us frequently! Best of luck to those who are having their examinations!

A quickie of the climbing type!

Venue: Camp5
Climbers: Bing, King, Sean
Featured friends: Japanese dude, Kent


We apologize for the late posting and lack of updates, but Monash University loves to kill their students with this 'thing' called 'assignments'. Initially this 'thing' appears completely harmless, but it is for this very reason that it is able to pounce on its victims at the very last minute, when their prey seem completely relaxed.

But anyhow, we still managed to climb last Friday! However I had to leave early to head over to Qba for some Quban beats! King however continued climbing with Sean.

Nonetheless, it was great! (while i was there of course). At first we canceled our climb because i couldn't make it, as I had plans after. But temptation gave in, and before i knew it i was in camp5 with King!

Sometimes temptations give such abundant pleasure!

Since we didn't have much time as i had to leave at 7:15pm, King and I decided to just do some crazy bouldering today. We warmed up with some basic traversing. It was not long before we were playing 'add-on' with our new Japanese friend. Unfortunately we forgot his name, and we were so busy playing that we forgot to take pictures. But hey, here's a self drawn picture that most accurately illustrates us:

illustration may differ slightly from reality

Anyway, our Japanese friend had to leave early, so King and I went to climb in the bouldering cave. The bouldering cave at camp5 have some awesome routes and trails that you must try out. We hardly boulder in the cave, so we actually made lotsa cool trails. We experimented with some of the overhangs and did some foot positioning training.

Part of the bouldering cave

King and I trying out some of the overhang routes

Of course it wasn't long before Sir Sean appeared. He seemed to have a particular grin on his face that day. It wasn't hard to figure out why - He had just gotten his rock climbing gear from Singapore! Apparently you can get gear there at a cheaper rate. However, Sean's from Johor (just above Singapore), so he just ran across the border to get em.

Sean's harness and shoes. All the gear can be viewed in detail when the 'profile' section is completed.

Sometimes, if you're lucky, you'd be able to catch a nice shot of the sky from camp5.

Beautiful sky. But hey, whatever makes you happy. It's all relative.

Coming back to climbing, we soon met up with Kent. He's another regular at camp5 and is one heck of a climber. He tries his best to come to camp5 at least twice a week to boulder and climb, and he's really experienced. He taught us a few new techniques which is easy to do if you were the rubber man. He also introduced us to a cool route which would help us practice this technique. Basically, you're required to heel hook your hand holds before grabbing the next one.

clockwise from top left: Kent; King showing the starting position; Red route - supposed to bring left foot up to where the left hand is, then left hand reaches for overhang dark red; Kent finishing the trail.

Kent later went on to show us the 'UB40' trail (or at least that what i think i heard), which is the longest bouldering trail there. Unfortunately the last part of the trail was taken down, but there's still a good 3/4 left. It starts from behind the pillar above, at leads all the way to the campus training boards.

Kent almost reaching the end of the route.

That was pretty much our Friday climb last week at camp5 yet again! There's always something new to try and something new to experience each time we go there. Next we'd feature a little something from camp5's campus training section in the bouldering cave.

Climbing in England (2) - 03/05/2007

Climbers: Joey
Venue: The Castle, England
Featured friends: Hannah, Yun, Ming

Nothing strikes you more than the realisation that you are going to pay for your excesses the next day. No, I haven't been out drinking myself silly. It has, however, been 3 weeks since my last climb (due to a shoulder injury) and we didn't exactly take it easy tonight!

Tonight, we were at our usual haunt - The Castle, North London. A converted castle which used to be a water pumping station, the castle has a range of bouldering, top roping and lead climbing routes. Overhangs, 30' walls, traversing walls, exercise/ development area, the Castle is mid-sized but perfectly equipped.

Hannah and Yun checking the length of the rope for kinks

Yun pointing out the route

After warming up with some traversing and 5c top roping, we were off on our way to test out Hannah and Yun's newly-bought, first length of rope.

We decided to take it easy and start ourselves on a 5+ route. Before long, we were ambitiously trying out 6a routes (pretty unnerving when you haven't got a top rope holding you up!). We were, of course, all squabbling over whose turn it was to climb/belay (lead climbing still being a relative novelty to us!) - this might be a sign that we should invest in another length of rope before this one is in tatters from tug-of-war rather than actual climbing!

(Top) Me on a 5c climb - no comments on the size of my toosh please!; (Bottom) Look at the state of our shoes! Donations, anyone?

Anyhow, due to the sheer number of people at the Castle tonight (or maybe just laziness) we only climbed for 3 hours instead of our usual 4 on a Thursday night. Gawd knows what state I'm going to be in tomorrow, let alone on Saturday morning (our other regular climbing day)!

J xx

Climbing in England (1)

Climbers: Joey
Venue: Symonds Yat, England
Featured friends: Hannah, Yun, Ming

So I've finally been granted access to posting in this blog - big day for me, but I still had to think of what to write for my first post! Bing asked me to write about climbing in England, but climbing indoors is probably much for muchness whichever country you're in, isn't it? After much deliberation, I've decided to go for my first outdoor climbing experience - just to be a bit different ;)

Last September, my friends, Hannah, Yun, Ming, and I went to Symonds Yat in the Wye Valley, Gloucestershire (West of England). It was a wet, rainy day, and being a limestone area (slippery at the best of times; worse when it's wet!), it probably wasn't the best introduction to outdoor climbing (girls, if you treasure your nails and are afraid of getting muddy and dirty, this is definitely not for you)! Still, we consoled ourselves with the thought that if we could climb there, we could climb anywhere.

The area is very large and features a great variety in rock features (quite a lot of nice jugs!) and routes across the different grades. Set amongst beautiful surroundings (you can even hear the River Wye rushing by) it's very popular with middle grade climbers. The routes range from VDiff (4a) to the occasional E6 (beyond the scale!).

Being hardcore(!), our guide started us off on a Severe (French 5c) climb in a crag on the Kipper Crack, which we each climbed up and absailed back down a couple of times, before moving on to a VS (French 6a) climb. You'd think this was ambitious for our first time, but I can't stress enough how different outdoor climbing is from indoors. Anyone, no matter how tall/short, can potentially do any climb. Forget 'following the colours' - outdoors, you grab anything within your reach!

(Clockwise from top left) 1.Getting ready for the first climb; 2.Where's my next hold?!? Bring the colours back! :( ; 3.Yun looking all calm and relaxed despite the strain the rest of us are feeling; 4.Reaching the top - see the relief on my face?!? (Bing says I look dorky in my helmet, but be nice or I won't post again!)

We spent the whole day there and by the end of it, you'd never seen a muddier, more bruised or tired bunch of people in your life - but it was definitely worth it! Unfortunately, we went before we learnt how to lead climb, so we were forced to resort to top roping (by tying very long ropes off on trees at the top of the crag).

This Summer, I'll be climbing in the High Pyrenees (Spanish range of mountains). It's a granite area and having now learnt to lead climb, I can't wait to try it out for real! I hope I live to tell the tale!

J xx

Tuesday's Climb (24/4/2007)

Climbers: Bing, King, Sean
Venue: Summit Climbing Gym
Featured friends: Benjamin

This is the place where we had our first ever indoor rock climbing experience. It all started about 5 years back, where Jeen Sern (a very close friend) introduced us to this sport. We got most of our rock climbing basics from here, mainly basic belaying, climbing and bouldering. But we were still in high-school back then, which means we didn't really have the convenience and cash to actually climb as frequently as we do now, so we eventually stopped climbing until recently.

The day started with us having some problems signing into the gym to climb because we either lost or forgot to bring our old 'certified belayer' cards. Bing forgot to bring his, and King's card probably evaporated after leaving it in his wallet after so many years. So as a formality, they had to test us to re-certify us as climbers again. That's when we met Benjamin, a very nice chap whom we got to know as we continued climbing. Benjamin is also a fellow climber, and is pretty advanced judging by some of the trails he set for us, and the advice he gave us regarding some of the 6B trails we attempted.

Benjamin

For this climbing session, we managed to complete some of the 5C to 6A+ top rope ranked trails. Then we kinda got over our heads and decided to try some 6B and 6B+ trails, which were really difficult, so we couldn't complete them. After doing some top rope trails, the bouldering section seemed to catch our attention as there were many people doing it. So we tagged along and did some bouldering, and somehow we ended up bouldering for the rest of the day!

(Clockwise from top left): 1. Sean about to make a jump during bouldering; 2. Bing finishing a bouldering route; 3. The bouldering area in Summit; 4. Bing attempting a 6B top rope route

During bouldering, we got to see some really... really insane maneuvers and feats done by some of the regular climbers that were there! That really showed us that we still have a long way to go. Oh, and we forgot to take some pictures of those climbers because we were too busy admiring their moves and learning from them. But we did manage to get some shots of them when they were resting though.

After the climb, we decided to head over to Tanjung Mamak Bistro in Subang Jaya ss14 to have some unique fried kuay teow, highly recommended by Bing for those who haven't tried it before. What makes this fried kuay teow so unique is that they serve it in two ways - "basah" (wet) and "biasa" (normal). If you're feeling adventurous, Bing recommends that you try the 'basah'. The portions are not spectacular, so you could always try the 'biasa' after. Both taste even better with the green pickled chilli. And what makes it even more special is that it's cooked by a Malay couple! And who said only the chinese knew how to cook good chinese food? It should be noted that you are supposed to place your order at the stall and not with the mamak waiters, as they only rent a small part of the premises to operate their stall. You can however, eat it anywhere.

Clockwise from top: outside view; fried Kuay teow basah, fried kuay teow biasa.


Map to the place.

Friday's Climb (20/4/2007)

At this point, we are still figuring out what we want to publish in our posts. But in a nutshell, we generally would highlight any significant events and happenings during our climbs, feature a particular trail(s) which we think is interesting, review the dinner places we go to after climbing, and talk about the people we bring and meet each week. Of course we would also share articles and news that we come across relating to the rock climbing scene, as well as techniques and maybe even gadgets. The sky's the limit here, therefore as VR develops, we encourage our readers to drop a comment or two into our posts, or even email us at verticalrising@gmail.com for requests or questions and we'll try our very best to fulfill them. As the site develops further, we would also increase our writers base so that they too can share their experiences. Till then, continue to support us by visiting us frequently!

Climbers: Bing, King, Sean
Venue: Camp5
Featured Climbers: Chris
Guests: Tua

Today's climb was particularly fun, because we met up with Chris! Chris is one crazy climber who loves to do crazy stunts like dyno'ing downwards, sms'ing while belaying, and speed climbing. He's a regular here at camp5 and is well known to most of the members and staff.

Chris

So the day's climb started with me, King and Chris going over to the bouldering wall and playing 'add-on'. The game is simple: The first person picks 2 hand holds and 2 foot holes and then traverses/climbs to 2 more holds. The next person then climbs the exact same route, and then simply adds 2 more for the next climber to follow on. If the climber falls while attempting a route, then he forfits his chance of adding 2 for that round. The winner would be the one that accomplishes a route that no one can.

Later on, Sean and his friend Tua (which is his actual surname) came along and joined us. Tua isn't exactly a newbie as he has been for OBS (out bounds school), where he learned the basics of belaying and repelling. While King and Sean went through the basics with him, Chris and I went to the castle wall near the trad wall to do some top ropes. After that, it wasn't long before Tua started doing 5c trails!

Tua and his 5c accomplishment

Of course the highlight of the day was not a trail, but an incident that happened at the bouldering section. A marshal was taking a couple and their little daughter for a tour of the climbing gym when they came to the bouldering section. So as the marshal demonstrated how bouldering was done in general, he then showed them how to properly jump of a boulder rock onto the boulder mat. The rest of the story is best illustrated with the self drawn comic below:

Of course we waited till they left before we laughed. But our laughs were more like subtle giggles rather than loud bursts of haha's - contrary to what is depicted in the comic.

We finished climbing at 11pm and headed to DJ for some tai chao. Unfortunately we were so exhausted and hungry that we forgot to take pictures for the food review. Oh well, there's always next time!

More to come: next week we feature a climb at The Summit's rock climbing gym.